He studied composition at the Royal Manchester College, and went to the Paris Conservatory on a French government scholarship. From 1960 to 1968 he worked at the BBC, and was then awarded a Churchill Fellowship that enabled him to go to Tokyo From 1968 to 1969 he was composer-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, and in 1970 became assistant professor of music at Yale University. He was appointed professor of music at Cambridge University in 1976.